Van Rompuy seeks to make Councils smaller

Herman Van Rompuy, who will take office on 1 January as the first permanent president of the European Council, wants to keep future summits small, he told member states’ leaders at dinner on Thursday. He wants to scrap the current practice of including foreign ministers.

This immediately put him on a collision course with member states with coalitions, where the head of government is from the dominant party and the foreign minister from the principal coalition partner – as is the case for Austria. But he was adamant, telling the assembled heads of state or government that they, as a restricted group, were the “principal members” of the European Council and the Council’s “decision-making node”.

Reduced roles

Miguel Ángel Moratinos, the foreign minister of Spain, which takes over the EU’s rotating presidency from Sweden on 1 January, would find his role sharply reduced by this move. At the same time, the new president also announced that he intends to take part in half a dozen of the regular meetings in Brussels of national line ministers that examine EU legislation.

Spain’s presidency will be transitional, with some business still conducted according to the pre-Lisbon rules. All-Lisbon decision-making is to be introduced under the Belgian presidency, in the second half of 2010.

This was the first summit attended by Van Rompuy since his appointment in November, and his role was ambiguous. Although he has not yet formally assumed office, he addressed the summit as president, as he stressed in a declaration published afterwards. He has also since issued statements on behalf of the EU, for example on an attack on Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, on 13 December.

To iron out some of the differences, Van Rompuy travelled to Madrid on Tuesday (15 December). His talks with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s prime minister, covered other unresolved questions on the future division of labour between his office and the rotating presidency, including who should lead the EU in the summits that are to take place under the Spanish presidency with the United States, the countries of Latin America, and Morocco.